Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty

Neuroscience is increasingly being called upon to address issues within the humanities. We discuss challenges that arise, relating to art and beauty, and provide ideas for a way forward.Musi

Parallel, multi-stage processing of colors, faces and shapes in macaque inferior temporal cortex

Visual-object processing culminates in inferior temporal (IT) cortex. To assess the organization of IT, we measured fMRI responses in alert monkey to achromatic images (faces, fruit, bodies, places) and colored gratings. IT contained multiple color-biased regions, which were typically ventral to face patches and, remarkably, yoked to them, spaced regularly at four locations predicted by known anatomy. Color and face selectivity increased for more anterior regions, indicative of a broad hierarchical arrangement. Responses to non-face shapes were found across IT, but were stronger outside color-biased regions and face patches, consistent with multiple parallel streams. IT also contained multiple coarse eccentricity maps: face patches overlapped central representations; color-biased regions spanned mid-peripheral representations; and place-biased regions overlapped peripheral representations. These results suggest that IT comprises parallel, multi-stage processing networks subject to one organizing principle

Functional Architecture for Disparity in Macaque Inferior Temporal Cortex and Its Relationship to the Architecture for Faces, Color, Scenes, and Visual Field

Binocular disparity is a powerful depth cue for object perception. The computations for object vision culminate in inferior temporal cortex (IT), but the functional organization for disparity in IT is unknown. Here we addressed this question by measuring fMRI responses in alert monkeys to stimuli that appeared in front of (near), behind (far), or at the fixation plane. We discovered three regions that showed preferential responses for near and far stimuli, relative to zero-disparity stimuli at the fixation plane. These “near/far” disparity-biased regions were located within dorsal IT, as predicted by microelectrode studies, and on the posterior inferotemporal gyrus. In a second analysis, we instead compared responses to near stimuli with responses to far stimuli and discovered a separate network of “near” disparity-biased regions that extended along the crest of the superior temporal sulcus. We also measured in the same animals fMRI responses to faces, scenes, color, and checkerboard annuli at different visual field eccentricities. Disparity-biased regions defined in either analysis did not show a color bias, suggesting that disparity and color contribute to different computations within IT. Scene-biased regions responded preferentially to near and far stimuli (compared with stimuli without disparity) and had a peripheral visual field bias, whereas face patches had a marked near bias and a central visual field bias. These results support the idea that IT is organized by a coarse eccentricity map, and show that disparity likely contributes to computations associated with both central (face processing) and peripheral (scene processing) visual field biases, but likely does not contribute much to computations within IT that are implicated in processing color.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EY023322)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1353571

Color-Biased Regions of the Ventral Visual Pathway Lie between Face- and Place-Selective Regions in Humans, as in Macaques

The existence of color-processing regions in the human ventral visual pathway (VVP) has long been known from patient and imaging studies, but their location in the cortex relative to other regions, their selectivity for color compared with other properties (shape and object category), and their relationship to color-processing regions found in nonhuman primates remain unclear. We addressed these questions by scanning 13 subjects with fMRI while they viewed two versions of movie clips (colored, achromatic) of five different object classes (faces, scenes, bodies, objects, scrambled objects). We identified regions in each subject that were selective for color, faces, places, and object shape, and measured responses within these regions to the 10 conditions in independently acquired data. We report two key findings. First, the three previously reported color-biased regions (located within a band running posterior–anterior along the VVP, present in most of our subjects) were sandwiched between face-selective cortex and place-selective cortex, forming parallel bands of face, color, and place selectivity that tracked the fusiform gyrus/collateral sulcus. Second, the posterior color-biased regions showed little or no selectivity for object shape or for particular stimulus categories and showed no interaction of color preference with stimulus category, suggesting that they code color independently of shape or stimulus category; moreover, the shape-biased lateral occipital region showed no significant color bias. These observations mirror results in macaque inferior temporal cortex (Lafer-Sousa and Conway, 2013), and taken together, these results suggest a homology in which the entire tripartite face/color/place system of primates migrated onto the ventral surface in humans over the course of evolution.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EY13455)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EY023322)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 5T32GM007484-38)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (STC Award CCF-1231216)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1353571)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowshi

Ecosystem-level evaluation of Iowa\u27s lake restoration program

Lakes constitute about 87% of the world’s freshwater and provide a number of valuable ecosystem services. However, changes in land use and the introduction of non-native fishes often results in lake degradation through changes in habitat, water quality, and biotic structure. . To counteract these threats and improve lake ecosystems, natural resource agencies often invest considerable effort by manipulating watershed and in-lake process responsible for lake degradation. For example, the Iowa Lake Restoration Program began in 2006 with the goal of improving water quality and biotic integrity across natural and constructed lakes. Since then, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has worked with communities and other resource agencies to improve water quality and restore fish communities. Over the last decade, many improvements in water quality and fisheries have been observed due to these efforts. However, these observations are based largely on anecdotal evidence or individual water chemistry parameters that may provide inaccurate representations of overall lake condition and restoration success. Thus, to create a more holistic evaluation of previous restoration projects and inform future efforts, further analysis was needed on the interrelationships among water quality and the biological community before and after restoration. The objectives of this study were to evaluate water quality, phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish communities in 21 restored Iowa lakes pre- and post-restoration. A Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) system design was used to account for natural change associated with the spatial and temporal variability across restored lakes. Water clarity, indexed by Secchi depth, turbidity, suspended solids, and phosphorus, improved 1 year post restoration for in-lake (natural) and both treatments, but not for other treatments. Additionally, restoration had no detectable effect on phytoplankton or zooplankton community composition, likely due to the myriad of other biotic and abiotic factors that can influence these populations. Changes in water clarity over post-restoration years were not correlated with the amount of sediment removed, shoreline riprapped, lake surface area, or the watershed: surface area ratio. However, water clarity was positively related to the change in largemouth bass abundance, but negatively related to the abundance of common carp and channel catfish. Results of this study begin to elucidate possible trends related to restoration measures and add to our current knowledge on the interrelationships among water quality, fish assemblage, watershed, and lake characteristics. Second, I evaluated factors regulating bluegill population characteristics (relative abundance, size structure, and condition) among Iowa lakes. Bluegill are ubiquitous in systems across Iowa but populations are of varying quality. Bluegill are positioned in the middle of lake food webs, and subsequently are influenced by a suite of biotic and abiotic factors. Thus, bluegill can be used as an indicator of lake health. Bluegill relative abundance increased with largemouth bass relative abundance, watershed:lake surface area, and N:P ratio and decreased with turbidity. Bluegill size structure increased with channel catfish relative abundance and zooplankton density. Bluegill condition increased with largemouth bass relative abundance and common carp relative abundance, but decreased with largemouth bass size structure and lake depth. Relationships among bluegill and environmental characteristics can provide insight to managers regarding parameters to manipulate in order to improve these important panfish populations. Together, results from these chapters can be of significant use to resource managers when considering implications of restoration on native fish communities in the future

Color naming across languages reflects color use

What determines how languages categorize colors? We analyzed results of the World Color Survey (WCS) of 110 languages to show that despite gross differences across languages, communication of chromatic chips is always better for warm colors (yellows/reds) than cool colors (blues/greens). We present an analysis of color statistics in a large databank of natural images curated by human observers for salient objects and show that objects tend to have warm rather than cool colors. These results suggest that the cross-linguistic similarity in color-naming efficiency reflects colors of universal usefulness and provide an account of a principle (color use) that governs how color categories come about. We show that potential methodological issues with the WCS do not corrupt information-theoretic analyses, by collecting original data using two extreme versions of the color-naming task, in three groups: the Tsimane’, a remote Amazonian hunter-gatherer isolate; Bolivian-Spanish speakers; and English speakers. These data also enabled us to test another prediction of the color-usefulness hypothesis: that differences in color categorization between languages are caused by differences in overall usefulness of color to a culture. In support, we found that color naming among Tsimane’ had relatively low communicative efficiency, and the Tsimane’ were less likely to use color terms when describing familiar objects. Color-naming among Tsimane’ was boosted when naming artificially colored objects compared with natural objects, suggesting that industrialization promotes color usefulness.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award 1534318

An artifical corrosion protocol for lap-splices in aircraft skin

This paper reviews the progress to date to formulate an artificial corrosion protocol for the Tinker AFB C/KC-135 Corrosion Fatigue Round Robin Test Program. The project has provided new test methods to faithfully reproduce the corrosion damage within a lap-splice by accelerated means, the rationale for a new laboratory test environment, and a means for corrosion damage quantification. The approach is pragmatic and the resulting artificial corrosion protocol lays the foundation for future research in the assessment of aerospace alloys. The general means for quantification of corrosion damage has been presented in a form which can be directly applied to structural integrity calculations

Methamphetamine-Induced Conditioned Place Preference In Adolescent Male and Female Mice of Two Strains

We used a conditioned place preference paradigm to test the rewarding effects of methamphetamine (1mg/kg) in adolescent male and female mice of two strains. We found that methamphetamine induced conditioned place preference in female C57Bl/6 and male 129/SvEv mice, but not female 129/SvEv or male C57Bl/6 mice